


the kids are alright (are we?)

by AnnCherie



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi, past teen pregnnacy, sort of inspired by rufus/lily tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29770245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnCherie/pseuds/AnnCherie
Summary: when two children get detention together they never expect to unlock a secret their parents have kept (both knowingly and unknowingly)i.e. Dan Humphrey and Blair Waldorf are disaster characters but I love them and so does Nate.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf, Nate Archibald/Dan Humphrey, Nate Archibald/Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is a very self-indulgent fic so if you're here i'm sorry in advance

Sometimes Dan Humphrey wished he had made his morning coffee an Irish more than others, and this is one of them. Having finally gotten halfway into an op-ed he was supposed to finish by the end of the week, he had thought the day was going great. A phone call from the Principal of his daughter’s private grade school didn’t agree. Clarissa, adopted daughter of Dan and Nate Humphrey-Archibald, was a beautiful tiny nine year old girl with terrifying intelligence and aptitude for trouble. Maybe it was in the name, the ones the likes of Virginia Woolf and Samuel Richardson had waxed poetic on, but she was the kind of force Dan was all too familiar with. It was why he had fallen in love with her at the agency before they had even decided on the age of the child to adopt.

When he and Nate had gotten her a place in this prestigious school Clarissa had been a model student for the first semester. Any layman who had read even just one article on child psychology would say she was trying to prove her worth to her new parents, but when she had settled into the easy enveloping love that both her fathers and the extended Humphrey family gave, she changed. She became more herself, arguing with teachers about the quality of their class material-- at  _ nine-- _ which Dan’s father liked to remind him was the age Dan had as a child. Before the year had even finished she had tested well out of third and into fifth grade. No longer met with educational boredom, she had instead turned to social approval and pranks to win over her classmates who thought she was a baby in comparison to their ripe old age of ten and eleven years old.

So now, on top of writing op-eds and working on his second novel, he had to volunteer on the PTA committee and make donations about once a week so his daughter wasn’t kicked out of the school that cost him and his husband Nate as much as community college tuition.

This time it was a prank that involved the teacher’s bathroom that required him to drive to the school office and deal with Principal Pipton, quite possibly the most annoying and frustrating woman Dan had ever had the misfortune of meeting. If he lived a different life he would very much wish to have gone into education and ousted her from the school himself. 

Nicole, the young front desk attendant for the school, was nice enough to give him a sympathetic smile as she waved him back into the larger Principal office when he arrived. Nate was standing on the side of the chair Clarissa sat in across from Pipton’s desk, but there was an unfamiliar presence of two more in the room. From the look of things, Clarissa had finally found herself an accomplice.

Instagram models would have been jealous of the probable mother in the room, her blonde hair longer and shinier than anything short of a celebrity could accomplish. She was tall even without the heels she was sporting or the fashionable outfit that went along with it, but her and her child looked nothing alike.

The kid was probably the younger side of third grade but had no air of confidence about him as he sat in the chair too large for his frame. Physically, he reminded Dan of a younger version of himself. Mess of brown curls, big brown eyes, and pale skin. He wondered how on earth his daughter had convinced such an obviously straight laced kid to pull off a big prank. God knew that there wasn’t anyone who could have done it to him back in the day.

“Sherry,” Dan greeted the Principal congenially. The woman gave a dazzling smile that betrayed the clear annoyance given in the tight way she returned his handshake. “Let’s get this through, shall we?”

Nate sent him a warning glare at the slight-- it wasn’t  _ Dan’s _ fault he always came off sarcastic to Nate’s amiability-- but the corners of Nate’s mouth still flickered with the same exhausted acceptance they had reached. Unfortunately Clarissa had caught the exchange and smirked, dark brown hair pulled out of her braid and wild as it always was. Despite the hours Dan had spent learning how to do hair from both his sister and online tutorials. When they both gave her unamused looks she turned back around and ignored them, grinning as she did so with the same charming smile that seemed genetically similar to Nate’s.

“Well normally we’d go through the usual routine with Ms. Clarissa here,” the Principal began. “But this time there isn’t any way she accomplished the feat alone and her dragging one of our star students like Eliot into trouble just isn’t acceptable.”

“Clarissa scores in the top of her class,” Dan replied, the edge not quite out of his tone. “I understand that she can cause trouble but implying that she’s tainting--,”

“What Dan means--,” Nate interrupted. “Was that we agree that her pranks are immature and need to stop, but that everyone should be accountable for their own actions. It would be unlike Clarissa to bully anyone into going along with her.”

Now it was the mother of said accomplice’s turn to talk, and she had a warm voice and a gentle calming hand on her kid’s shoulder. Instead of looking at the principal-- Pipton looked offended by this-- she turned to her kid and gave a small conspiring whisper. “Please tell me you actually let loose for once.”

Staring at his feet instead of any of the adults, Eliot admitted, “Yeah, I helped her.”

The woman grinned, much to Principal Pipton’s dismay. “I’m sure his mother Blair would have something different to say about that.”

Even though it had been years, Dan found himself having a pull in his chest at the name of the first girl to break his heart. Luckily it wasn’t a common occurrence, the name not quite popular. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t also had almost ten years to get over it.

“And I apologize that she’s busy defending a client in court.” Was the suddenly serious response, even if it held a gentle quality. “But since she’s not here, I’m sure we’ll be fine with whatever punishment you deem necessary for a ten year old.”

Nate barely veiled a chuckle as a cough in his throat but Dan couldn’t quite manage to purse his lips enough to cover his smirk. 

Principal Sherry Pipton sent them off with detention for the children and heavy disapproval for the parents, and as they walked out of the office and past the front desk Dan does the most impulsive thing he’s done in ages and asks Eliot’s guardian, “What’s Eliot’s mother’s last name?”

She regarded him with confused surprise as most people would, but tentatively answered, “Waldorf. Why?”

Throat tightening as he stopped in his tracks, he gave a fake and dismissive smile. “Just don’t hear the name often.” Nate narrowed his eyes now, holding Clarissa’s hand as they all stalled.

“Dad, come on.” Clarissa complained. “I want to go home and read Dickinson now.”

“You read poems?” Eliot asked her, both kids oblivious to the emotional storm Dan was on the brink of showing. “What kind--,”

“Let’s go, Dan.” Nate interrupted, picking up on the seriousness. “It was nice to meet you all.”

_ Blair Waldorf _ . The girl that shattered his heart into so many pieces he hadn’t been able to let anyone pick them up except for Nate years later-- and that was only because he had never expected Nate to begin with. He’s numb as he follows his family out of the school and into the cab, barely making small talk as Nate covers for him by taking Clarissa’s attention. Eleven years. Eleven years had gone by since he had heard her name and now their worlds were colliding again because of their school children? I mean how had Blair even managed to have a ten year old?

_ Oh. _


	2. Chapter 2

Long days were usual for Blair as a private attorney, but ones that ended with her arriving home to a son that had gotten in trouble was not. Eliot was the most well-behaved child she knew for ten years old and that wasn’t her bias speaking. More than once she had to tell the kid to lighten up at least a little-- partly out of fear of being her mother-- but he never stepped a toe out of line. Until today, apparently.

When she arrived home, Serena was there looking over her son in the living room. The beautiful blonde best friend had some kid friendly Disney movie on the television that Eliot was pointedly ignoring with a book. While he was perfectly polite about it, he had started to tell everyone he was “too old” for anything animated or on a kids’ network. Blair had no idea what she was going to do with him.

She gave a tired wave to them, and Eliot sheepishly slinked further into his book. Serena gave a warm hello back, but Blair turned the corner and went upstairs to change out of her business formal suit. She was surprised when Serena followed her.

“Don’t be too hard on him, B,” the woman told her when they arrived in Blair’s room, Serena leaning in the door. 

They had met in boarding school in Europe the last month of their senior year, both of them the only Americans there at the time, and had been fast friends ever since. When Blair had chosen to finally move back to New York with Eliot, Serena had followed, and the single mother could not thank her enough.

“You followed me alone to advocate for a smaller punishment?” Blair asked, eyebrow arched. She removed her suit jacket that felt all too stuffy at home where she was safe. 

“No,” Serena admitted with a hesitant pause and then an innocent enough question. “You said you know everyone at Eliot’s school, right? Even the parents?”

Blair paused as she took off her earrings. “Why? Is there a celebrity child in competition now?”

“No, not that I recognized.” Serena laughed, before turning serious. “One of the fathers asked about you. He seemed really spooked when I gave him your last name.”

“Well, what was his?” Blair asked impatiently, her anxiety spiking. Throughout her career she had made enemies, it came with the territory of winning cases and taking money, but why would someone be spooked versus intrigued?

Serena frowned. “I think his husband called him Dan?”

Blood feeling as though it had stopped flowing through her veins, she dropped the earring she had been holding. Flustered, she tried to find it while also trying to calm herself into focusing on the fact that this had to be a coincidence and nothing else. When Serena found it and handed it to her, she looked a little too deeply into Blair’s eyes. “What’s wrong?”

Blair abandoned undressing, settling for wearing only her silk blouse and suit pants and went a little too quickly back down the stairs. “Eliot? Sweetie? What was that girl's name that got you in trouble?”

“Clarissa?” Eliot replied, peering over the top of his book with caution. He could tell the tense mood his mother had no control over hiding.

“No.” Blair said, trying to sound pleasant and patient. “Her last name.”

Eliot bit his lip. “I don't know, she has two. Please don’t call her parents, it was my fault too--,"

“What are they?” She doesn’t sound pleasant anymore, and Serena chides her. “Blair….”

“Archibald.” Eliot answered. “She doesn't like the way the other sounds. She said it sounded disapproving and that's why she didn't like it even though she liked that family better.”

“Disapproving sound?” Blair asked, not wanting to know the answer anymore. Surely her life had been enough of a rollercoaster hadn’t it? “Like humph? As in Humphrey?”

A small amount of fear and resignation fell on Eliot’s face. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Her voice cracked a tiny bit when she said, “Thank you, sweetie,” but she cleared her throat and became firm as she told him, “Stop reading Dickinson and go finish your homework. Auntie Serena is going to babysit you.”

“Okay,” Eliot listened, even though she could tell he wasn’t quite happy about homework as he left the room.

“Blair,  _ what _ is going on?” Serena asked, looking extremely concerned at this point. Perhaps she shouldn’t have thrown Serena into babysitting without question.

“I just need air,” she barely managed, ready to throw up. “I’ll be back.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Three Gin Martinis only make her sadder. Weightlessness usually accompanied Blair’s drunkenness, and she wishes desperately that she could find that instead of this sharp pain in her chest. The bartender had tried to flirt with her at the beginning, but one stern look from her and he made her drink in seconds. 

Serena appears halfway through Blair debating on a fourth Martini and her heart stops. "Where's Eliot?" she panicked, but there was a slur to her words that didn't belong there for a Wednesday evening. Desperate times… 

The blonde’s eyes gleamed with worry as she eyed the martini on the bar top. "I called Eric to watch him. I’m worried about you, Blair."

"I'm fine," Blair lied, pushing her drink away. Cutting herself off was painful, but she didn't want things to get any worse than this.

"Blair, come on." Serena pushed. "Who is he that you're this upset? A former case?"

"Nothing work related," she replied bitterly, almost wishing it was. That sort of danger she could handle, but this…. 

"Then who?" 

"Who do you  _ think _ , Serena?" 

The hitch in Serena's breathing gave her surprise away, even as she tried to stay calm for Blair, who was starting to tear up. A gentle sunny day to Blair's stormy night. Still, Serena asks, “He’s Eliot’s _ father? _ ”

“I searched everywhere before putting him in that school.” Blair broke, her anxiety peaking with her inhibitions down. “Everywhere, Serena. And now he has a kid? In Eliot’s grade?  _ How?”  _ Now she’s crying, barely holding back sobs, wishing to hell that she had left the Martinis alone. “He’s going to take him. He’s going to get custody and give him a real home with two parents and attention and--,”

“ _ Blair, _ ” Serena interrupted, pulling her into her arms and glaring at the bartender who was looking at the scene. She didn’t even care at this point, her chest so tight she wanted to scream. “Blair, he has his own child and husband. He’s not going to steal Eliot from you. He can’t.”

“He can.”

“Not if you or Cyrus have any say in the matter.” She reassured, bringing Blair’s attorney step-father up in a smart move. Blair hiccupped, thinking of the custody battles she had handled during her pro bono hours.

With her face in her hands, she eventually dried her tears and tried to wipe the mascara under her eyes away. “He’s going to hate me. They both are.”

“Eliot will  _ always _ love you.” Serena said, squeezing Blair’s arms with a supportive smile as she pulled away. “And as for Dan-- you’ll have to take that a step at a time.”

“Tell me you’ll do whatever it takes to help me,” Blair asked her with sudden force.

“Of course,” Serena agreed, “but what--,”

“Pretend to be my wife?” She said with a pleading smile, ready to break. “If he thinks Eliot is safe and has two parents who are also gay maybe he’ll back off, I mean--,”

“That makes no sense, B.”

Blair strongly disagreed. “No, it’s perfect. That way no romantic feelings can be involved and we’ll be evenly matched, and--,”

Serena scoffed. “Whose romantic feelings? Because it kinda sounds like  _ yours _ .”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Blair snapped. “Anyway--,”

“You’ve avoided this man for ten years and never seriously dated once after,” Serena interrupted, an eyebrow arched. “Are you really telling me that this is just some pragmatic but deeply flawed scheme?”

“Of course.” She said, but definitely with weaker strength. Regaining momentum, she pettily argued, “And I was a single mother attorney, there was no time to date. Will you help me or not?”

With an extremely exasperated sigh, Serena then pursed her lips and looked Blair dead in the eyes. “ _ Only _ if you sit down and have a conversation with him about this. I’ll be sitting right next to you, but Blair you owe him the truth.”

  
“Fine,” she agreed, wanting to drown in a few more Martinis. Instead she’s dragged home and put to bed with aspirin and an impending hangover.  _ Fuck _ .


End file.
